Ennis Stops Zayas to Become Unified 154-Pound Champion
Jaron “Boots” Ennis (36-0, 32 KOs) stopped Xander Zayas (23-1, 13 KOs) in the seventh round on Saturday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, taking the WBA and WBO junior middleweight titles and handing the Puerto Rican the first defeat of his career.
Referee Harvey Dock waved off the contest at 1:49 of the seventh round after Zayas went down for the third time. Ennis, a former unified welterweight champion, becomes a titleholder in a second weight class. Zayas had been the sport’s youngest male unified champion entering the bout.
How the fight unfolded
Ennis switched to a southpaw stance midway through the opening round and dropped Zayas with a straight left after a series of shots, scoring the first knockdown of Zayas’ professional career. He controlled the early rounds behind his jab and combinations.
Zayas turned the fight around in the third, landing a series of right hands that hurt Ennis and drew a roar from a heavily pro-Zayas crowd. The exchanges continued into the fourth, with Zayas working the body and Ennis choosing to trade rather than hold and box. Several outlets, including ESPN, described the third as a Round of the Year candidate.
Ennis regained control in the fifth, putting Zayas down a second time with a right hand. He closed the show in the seventh, forcing Zayas to take a knee with a body shot before the corner accepted the stoppage.
Post-fight reaction
“It feels tremendous,” Ennis said. He graded his own performance harshly, noting the trouble he ran into in the middle rounds. “I was being lazy inside, that’s me, I have to sharpen that up. I would give myself a ‘C.'”
Asked about his next move, Ennis pointed to the rest of the division. “Whoever [promoter] Eddie [Hearn] wants, that’s who we are going to get next,” he said. “I’m here to be undisputed in this weight class so it doesn’t matter who is next because I’ll fight them all.”
Zayas declined to make excuses in defeat. “I’m not making any excuses tonight. He won like a champion,” he said. He also defended his corner’s decision to stop the fight. “They are here to let me live another day tomorrow. I knew it was the right decision if they made it because it was time.”
Terence Crawford, who previously held titles at both welterweight and junior middleweight and retired in 2025, watched the bout and offered a brief reaction on social media, declining to elaborate on his assessment.
Undercard results
Emiliano Vargas (18-0, 15 KOs) stopped Bryce Mills (22-2, 9 KOs) in the fourth round to retain his NABF, WBC USA Silver and WBO Latino junior welterweight titles. Britain’s Ben Whittaker (12-0-1, 9 KOs) needed just over two minutes to stop Richard Rivera (27-2, 20 KOs) in the second round, retaining the WBC Silver light heavyweight title.
